


Distracted

by Godahl



Series: Genderqueer Sly Cooper Stories [1]
Category: Sly Cooper (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Coming Out, Crimes & Criminals, Furry, Gen, GenderQueer Sly Cooper, Genderqueer Character, Pickpockets, transfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7314988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Godahl/pseuds/Godahl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sly and Bentley talk while Sly works the only job they know. Bentley, meanwhile, has a question he's dying to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distracted

It smelled like puke no matter how much they mouth breathed. Sly looked at their fingernails, and said, “I don’t know, I never had poutine.”

“Oh, it’s great!” replied Bentley over the phone, “It’s, like, you like fries, right?”

Sly glanced at the passerby’s. “I like fries all right.”

The subway. Sly sat on a bench. They listened to the trains go by. They sniffed at the mixture of cigarettes, trash, and farts. They rubbed their hand against the wood. Their home away from home. Above all else, they looked at the pockets of everyone around them.

“Well, these fries have cheese and gravy on them!”

“Um. Ew.” Sly saw a bulge in one pocket. A big badger fellow. Maybe a phone? They stood up and walked towards the badger.

“It’s not gross, it’s, like, eating pieces of Jesus!”

"Communion Jesus, or gourmet Jesus?"

" _Sly_."

“You’re making a pretty weak pitch here.” They smiled and walked just behind and to the right of the badger. They glanced at his eyes. He wasn’t looking. They glanced back down at the pocket.

“No, you’d love it? Your Dad’s Canadian, right? It’s a way to get closer to him!”

“Um. Sorry.” Sly exaggerated a trip and bumped into the badger. He grunted. “S—sorry.” They brushed the badger’s jacket off with their hand. The badger glared at Sly. “Sorry.” Their hand made a motion near the badger’s pocket. No more bulge. Sly move away. The badger walked on. “I don’t know, Dad doesn’t seem to care about Canada that much.”

“Why not? Canada seems great!”

“Yeah, I know. Health care.”

“Nice cold weather!”

Sly reached their bench and sat down. They held their real phone to their ear and carried the iPhone 5 they’d received from the badger in the other. Maybe worth a hundred or so. They turned it off. “Have you seen Canadian commercials? Some of them are pretty good.”

“I don’t know much about Canadian television. How are they?”

“Oh, Canadian television is terrible. They always produce the worst cartoons.” A rat walked by with a purse. Sly stood up. The rat turned and stared at them. Sly paused, then sat down. The rat walked away. Tough luck.

“But the commercials are good?”

“The commercials are pretty funny, yeah. There’s this one where they’re asking, like, what these kids ‘things’ are…” A bear sat next to them. She had a leather jacket with big pockets. Sly’s tail twitched. “One kid says, ‘bugs,’ and the next shot has him with plastic flies all over his face…” The bear wasn’t looking at them. They put their hand into her jacket pocket, took out a few things, got up, and walked away. “And I think another kid’s thing is trains.”

“Does this commercial have a name?”

“I don’t know.” The bear had had a few make up kits in her pockets. Sly slipped them in their bag. Might be worth a bit if they got lucky. “Someone on Twitter linked to it a while back.”

“Remember when old commercials were a meme a few months back?”

“Yeah. I remember people saying how hypocritical it was to be against capitalism and be in favor of recalling that stuff.” An aardvark walked by with an iWatch. Sly walked toward him. They approached each other.

“…Oh? I just thought that one about Shirley Temple was neat.”

“I don’t remember that one. I dunno, commercials aimed at kids are the short films that are going to be remembered in ten years, I think.” Sly approached him and tripped. The aardvark caught them by the wrist.

“Ha!”

“Or twenty.” Sly tightened their grip, and did a quick slide with their thumb.

“Uh, okay.”

“I liked the Quizno’s moon subs thing.” Sly let go of the aardvark’s hand. The aardvark didn’t have his watch anymore.

“That one was the worst!”

“It was great! The world just wasn’t ready for it.” Sly walked further, then looked back. They couldn’t see the aardvark.

“Uh.”

“It was the world’s first and best meme.” Sly looked at the iWatch. Brand new. They turned it off and put it in their jacket.

“Ha,” Bentley said. A pause. “Uh, Sly?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you… kind of a personal question?”

Sly tail stiffened. “Sure.” They saw an ox at a newspaper stand slip a money loaded wallet into his right back pocket. Nice.

“Sly, um,” Bentley said, “Have I been… misgendering you the entire time I’ve known you?”

Sly stopped moving for a brief second. Then they walked faster towards the ox. “How have you been gendering me?”

“I’ve been calling you a he.”

Sly reached the ox, touched his left side. The ox looked left. Sly slid a hand in his right back pocket and that was that. They breathed in. Then out. “You’ve been gendering me right,” they lied.

“Oh. Okay! Just making sure!”

Sly moved away, leaving the subway. “No problem.”

“I noticed you were introducing yourself to my friends as my ‘sibling’ and not my brother.”

Sly gritted their teeth. “I can see that being confusing.”

“Yeah. Just making sure. Anyway, are we still going bowling Saturday?”

“I don’t know. Sure.” Sly entered a Starbucks and sat down without ordering anything.

“Great! We’re playing the Klaww Gang, right?”

“Uh. Right.” They saw a lizard pay for a coffee with a hundred dollar bill. The barista inspected it, showed it to a manager, then gave her the change and she put it in her purse.

“We’re outnumbered five to one. We’ll need a couple more people.” The lizard waited at the bar. Sly watched, and didn’t say anything. “I can bring Penelope! Let’s not bring Guru. He’s terrible at bowling.”

The lizard got her coffee and walked to the exit.

“We’ll need to find another person. Got any ideas?”

Sly watched the lizard lady walk to a car with a wolf woman at the driver’s seat. She got in and they drove away.

“Sly?”

“Sorry. We’ll find someone.”

“Gotcha. Well, talk to you tomorrow!”

“Later.”

Sly sat at their seat a while longer. They looked at their hands. They looked at the ceiling. They walked to the counter and ordered coffee and then didn’t drink it.


End file.
